I don't care what you think.
Everything I'm writing here, for you to read, whoever you are, is true and real, but I don't fucking care if you believe it's true or how you feel about it. That's not the point. The point is that I want someone to know. I don't care if you believe it, or what you think of it, as long as you know about it, and you understand how I feel about it. Not how you feel. How I feel. Me.
I fuck Dad.
The first time we did it, I woke up the next morning in his bed, in his small one-bedroom apartment, and ran to the bathroom and puked in the toilet, I was so disgusted. I was ashamed and sick. I guess I should have been angry at him, but I wasn't. I didn't blame him. It never even occurred to me. Shit, I was overwhelmingly embarrassed by what he might have thought of me! Much later, I was partially ashamed of him as well, that he let it all happen. Not a lot, just a little, because it really was me, and I knew it right away that morning. That morning I was all wrapped up in my own guilt and fear, fear that I'd broken the last tenuous thread that connected me to him, and to the only foundation I'd ever known and the only one I really had left. He was my last grip on sanity and any sort of stability.
He was already in his kitchen that morning when I woke up, I think making coffee, or breakfast, like we were going to fucking play house. He must have heard me puking. Painfully bright sunlight streamed through all the windows while I too loudly wretched my shame, mixed with last night's dinner and too many drinks, into the echo chamber of the porcelain bowl. Damn, it was loud, and along with everything else I was too conscious of how loud and gross it was. It's almost like the guy who designed toilets intended to magnify the sound of every poor sod getting sick, to make you live your misery in surround sound.
The noises coming from the kitchen had stopped by the time I'd finished. I listened a moment to see if he'd resume. When he didn't, I panicked, fearful that he'd come to check on me. I wiped my mouth frantically. I didn't even brush my teeth after that. I ran to the bedroom to get my clothes, scrambling so quickly to put them on that I put the blouse on inside out. When I realized my mistake, I didn't bother to fix it. I stuffed some clothes into my backpack, leaving my larger suitcase behind. Fuck that. I just wanted out. I raced into the short hallway, out his front door as he watched in silence, giving him no chance to ask me not to go, sprinted down the long hallway to the stairs — to hell with the slow elevator, I was used to stairs — and out and down and out onto the street.
It was fucking raining. Pouring fucking rain. I tipped my head up to the sky, catching rainwater to help wash the taste of vomit from my mouth. It pelted my face like dozens of tiny, punishing slaps.
He didn't come down and call after me, or if he did, I didn't hear him. I just ran through the soaking rain, straight to the bus station, changed my return ticket, and went all the way back to where I was living — which I don't call "home". I don't call anyplace home. Every now and then, along the way to the bus station, tears would start streaming down my face. The rain slowed and stopped, but not my tears. A few times I had to stop, just to sob, those ugly, wracking, heaving kinds of sobs that make you think the person is choking to death or something. I felt so fucking weak! I hate being weak. I hated myself then, for a hundred different reasons. I was despicable. People passed by, and I could see in their faces they wanted to ask what was wrong, and that just made me so angry that I'd stare flames at them, glares that made it look like I was shitting down their throats. They'd see that stare, visibly flinch and turn away. Then I'd continue on as far as I could until the fucking tears and shame and horror took over again.
On the bus, soaking wet and sobbing still, I thought it through further. Incessantly, for hours and hours. I played the evening over and over in my head, asking questions, asking what ifs, asking why, asking how, asking what the fuck do I do tomorrow. What do I do for the rest of my life? That was the scariest part. Will I ever have a father again? Self respect? Hunting for blame. Blaming myself. Crying. Sobbing. Replaying it again and again and again. Trapped in hell in the shape of a bus for six fucking hours.
And trying not to remember, or admit to, how good it had all felt.
* * *
Sorry. I had to stop writing for a bit. I'm back now.
So, a little bit about my dad.
Dad left when I was almost eighteen. Well, he was thrown out. Mom — who's a monster cunt and such a raging, pathetic alcoholic that she was almost never conscious, let alone coherent — Mom caught him in the garage, fucking the twenty year-old co-ed that lived across the street. She was a prissy, little princess named "Tanya" — yeah, really, "Tanya" — that strutted around with a brainless chirp of a voice and her tits and ass hanging out whenever and however she could manage it. It's no big surprise to me that anyone and everyone probably fucked her, especially my perpetually horny dad. She was kind of plump, but that gave her big tits, way bigger than mine, and a round ass, and most guys don't need or notice anything past that. She was also a catty, selfish cunt, but that's another story.
For a change Mom was borderline sober, which was my Dad's unexpected bad luck. To celebrate, I had just convinced her to go out shopping with me, I think for shoes. So going from the house to the garage, Mom and I walk in on Dad plowing into the busty neighborhood slut on the hood of Mom's black Toyota Camry. Mom starts throwing things at Tanya, as if she's the one to blame, and then when she runs out of nearby ammunition she wades in like a Roman Legionnaire fighting the barbarians and starts wailing on Dad with both fists. In a panic, I opened the garage door, trying just to get out and away from the chaos myself, but of course, with an avenue of escape now open, Dad and Tanya beat me to it, sprinting out with Mom right on their heels. I followed then at a more measured pace. I remember glancing at the hood of the car and seeing the slut's sweaty butt prints right there on the hood. That one, vivid image is seared into my memory.
So Dad runs out with Tanya, both of them with nothing on below the waist, and Tanya's tits hanging out and swinging around like water balloons. From there it almost turned into a comedy. I literally had to stifle a laugh. Mr. Tanya — Tanya's dad — was out doing yard work. He looks over, his face turns fire-engine red, and he starts screaming "What the fuck?" Mr. Tanya immediately stomps over and attacks Dad, and they start going at it, with Tanya trying to get her dad to stop and Mom trying to help kill Dad, but the joke was on Mr. Tanya, because Dad laid him out flat with one roundhouse punch. Dad got some cuts and bruises, too, and a split lip, but he gave way more than he got.
Really, I mean, picture it. Two guys fighting, one with no pants on, and a mostly naked bimbo begging them to stop, while a menopausal drunk comically tries to get into the action. Life doesn't imitate art. Life imitates slapstick.
Not that it was all that funny to me, when I realized where it led. I lost my fucking dysfunctional family that day. I lost my dad. For the first time, I mean.
